


Ribbing

by onceuponamoon



Series: Knitting [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Dry Humping, Emotions, Fluff, Hand & Finger Kink, Knitting, M/M, Telepathic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 13:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1430962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamoon/pseuds/onceuponamoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim teaches Spock how to knit.  Spock teaches Jim other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ribbing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [matchboxbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchboxbones/gifts).



> Unbeta'd. Wow, this is really fluffy.

Spock pulls away almost immediately, still clutching the knitted garment in one hand, the other trembling as it lingers only inches away from Jim’s. “I apologize,” Spock says, taking one step farther away.

Jim nearly trails after him, fighting the urge to crowd into Spock’s space, to try to press together again their lips, their fingers. A warmth had suffused his body at Spock’s touch. It hadn’t just been the novelty of touching Spock’s skin, or the physical heat of his form, but an affection that blossomed throughout his chest. He wants to feel it again. After clearing his throat, Jim asks, “Why?”

“I had believed that it was quite apparent that you compromise my control,” Spock replies, both hands gripping the sweater. His thumb strokes across one of the sleeves, over an imperfection in Jim’s seaming skills. “I should have asked permission before engaging in such an intimacy.”

“Spock, I don’t care if you -- I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long.” _Ever since we couldn’t_ , Jim doesn’t say.

“It was not just a kiss, Jim,” Spock says, finally meeting Jim’s eyes with an unreadable emotion. “I briefly touched the surface of your emotions without your consent.”

Guilt. It’s guilt, Jim realizes. “And what did you feel from me?” 

After the question leaves his mouth, Jim wonders if perhaps it’s a taboo. But when he looks at Spock he sees a noticeably darker green tinge to the crests of Spock’s cheekbones, the pointed tips of his ears, across the bridge of his nose.

“I felt...affection,” Spock answers, “relief, longing, attraction.” He pauses, and Jim watches the bob of Spock’s adam’s apple as he swallows. “Love.”

Jim can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth. “You should put on the sweater,” Jim suggests, folding his arms across his chest.

Spock looks almost desperate when he asks, “Do you accept my apology?” as his fingers worry over the brown wool.

“There’s nothing to forgive. I appreciate the knowledge that you’d like to ask for my consent before you read my feelings, but as long as it’s just surface stuff, I actually think that’ll save us from a lot of fights in the long run. So don’t worry about it.” Jim shrugs. He reaches out and smacks Spock in the chest with the side of his hand. “ _C’mon, Spock_ , put on the sweater. I worked on that for a long time, you know.”

Something like gratitude sweeps over Spock’s expression, but then it’s obscured by his disrobing. Jim’s eyes greedily take in the way Spock’s undershirt conforms to his chest and ribs and abs as he shifts and shrugs into the handmade sweater. It catches on the tips of Spock’s ears and Jim practically staggers under a rush of affection. He reaches out and gently unhooks the fabric so that Spock can smooth it down. It’s slightly large in the collar, long in the sleeves, but nearly perfect everywhere else. There are a few places where the purls stick out haphazardly instead of lying flat, a burl in the composition of the wool, a few near gaps where the seaming could’ve been done tighter.

Overall, Jim thinks, it wasn’t an awful first attempt. Next time, he supposes, he can just get Spock’s measurements from the quartermaster instead of eyeballing it from his mind’s eye.

Spock flattens his hands down over the front of the sweater and then lets his arms hang at his sides. The ribbed cuffs of the sleeves nearly cover his whole hands.

“There’s room for improvement,” Jim critiques, “but you wear it well.” He sidles up closely, runs his hands across the collar and onto Spock’s right shoulder, fingering at one of the gaps in the fabric. “Is it warm?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Jim says. “Now show me that finger thing we were doing again.”

 

*

 

It’s called an _ozh’esta_ , the way Spock lines their first two fingers, curves the very tips until they’re nearly wrapped around the sensitive sides. 

The way Spock had explained it, the touch allowed a brief brushing of minds for bondmates, _telsu_ , but simply a surface telepathy for those unbonded. Jim had just liked the way that Spock kept slipping into Vulcan anytime Jim would move his fingers against Spock’s even the slightest bit. He’d had no idea that Vulcan hands were so sensitive. Mouth-kissing, alternately, as Spock explained were more commonly used for gestures of reassurance, and Spock had no problem (as Jim had remembered, _very_ clearly) doing as much in public. Hands, apparently, were considerably more intimate for a Vulcan.

They don’t kiss, in either way, on the bridge or in the mess, but sometimes under the table in the rec room after a game of chess, Jim will tap his fingertips against Spock’s knee until Spock’s subtly brush them away. Jim is more than positive that they aren’t as sneaky as they’d like to think they are.

 

*

 

After a month or two, Jim realizes that he doesn’t rage knit nearly half as much as he used to. Instead of piles and piles of shit that he doesn’t necessarily need, Jim has been spending his free time drafting patterns of hats and socks and sweaters for Spock.

Sometimes Spock deigns to join him -- actually just spending time with Jim instead of supervising science experiments or doing an extra shift on the bridge, to Jim’s bafflement. He’ll disappear into his quarters to meditate beforehand and then bids Jim goodnight only after he has started yawning. But in the meantime, he works on additional reports while Jim knits. Every so often, Jim looks up to find Spock’s eyes on his hands until Jim pauses. Occasionally, Spock meets and maintains eye contact, quirks a brow, silently goes back to his reading until Jim’s hands start up again. Other times he doesn’t move his stare at all.

 

*

 

One morning after they’ve both worked a back-to-back Beta and Gamma, Jim shuffles rather slowly to his own quarters, Spock trailing patiently behind him. Jim enters his quarters and says to Spock as he tugs off his boots, “I don’t think I’ve said it explicitly yet, but just know that you’ve got a standing invitation to be here, okay?”

“I appreciate your offer,” Spock says. Slowly, Spock steps very slowly up behind Jim and tucks his face against Jim’s shoulder, arms coming around to lightly grasp at the sides of Jim’s arms. He inhales and Jim tilts his head to the side.

In the privacy of the captain’s quarters, Jim has learned that, contrary to popular belief and all current official material, Vulcans are in fact significantly tactile creatures -- or, that Spock is, at the very least. Each touch allows Spock insight and intimacy that he claims to have never before wanted from another being, so when Jim turns in his hold and Spock’s hand trails down his shoulder to end with their first two fingers sliding together, he allows himself to revel in the fortuity. Though he can’t peer into Spock’s mind or discern any of his emotions, the touch itself offers Jim his very own bit of insight: Spock _craves_ him. The touch of his mind, the touch of his skin -- Spock wants both, but he doesn’t know how to ask.

“I mean it,” Jim says, “What’s mine is yours.”

Spock nods, closing his eyes. Jim is entranced by the length of his eyelashes. “I am grateful.”

Shifting his hand until his fingertips graze the sides of Spock’s, Jim listens for that nearly inaudible hitch in his breath and then, teasingly, pulls away. When Jim turns again, heading for the drawer containing his needles and yarn and current works in progress, he looks over his shoulder to see Spock standing with his hands clasped behind his back and an easy green blush coloring the tips of his ears. Jim tries to quell his smirk. He’s unsuccessful.

“I will return in one minute and seven seconds,” Spock says. 

He disappears through the ‘fresher door and Jim laughs, settling on the bed with his newest project, a double knit scarf, on his lap. It’s nice because he doesn’t have to really think about the pattern, a simple moss stitch, and it allows him to muse about how much longer he can hold out on asking Spock to just do what he wants -- mind, body, _whatever_.

True to his word, Spock returns and settles next to Jim on the bed. To Jim’s surprise, he has his own set of knitting needles and a neatly coiled skein of blue yarn. 

“I have requisitioned my own set of materials. I would be glad to learn how to fashion garments from so skilled a teacher as you, Jim, if you will allow me to be your student.”

“ _Fashion garments_ ,” Jim snickers as he pushes the fabric down toward the end of the needles and sets it down onto the bed beside him. “Yeah, sure. I’ll teach you how to knit.” 

It takes no time at all before Spock gets the hang of casting on, knit stitches, and purl stitches. (Even _with_ Jim purposely brushing his fingers and shaping his hands into position, to Jim’s chagrin.) Spock’s motions are precise, each stitch a little tighter than Jim would normally do, but once he has completed a few rows Spock seems to get into a groove that looks nearly as natural as anyone who has been at it for quite some time. From there, Spock takes the reins himself and allows Jim to focus on his own project. Every so often, Spock pauses to draft some of his own quickly developed ideas using _science_ \-- specific measurements and everything -- onto his PADD. Not that Jim would expect anything less, of course. 

But. Jim finally understands the appeal of watching another knit.

Spock’s hands look so strong -- and they _are_ strong; Jim can remember that much very clearly -- and his nimble fingers manipulate the yarn over and under and around the needles so quickly, coaxing out the quiet clinking slide of metal on metal. It’s nearly a religious experience.

Jim knits quite a bit slower, leisurely. His knits and purls are looser. His movements are less calculated. His projects are very obviously handmade.

Jim thinks that’s all pretty fitting.

But he gets it, now, the way Spock had been so easily distracted from his reports.

“Hey, Spock,” Jim says quietly, setting his needles aside once again. He shifts closer on the bed until he’s able to turn and rest his head in the crook of Spock’s thigh and stomach. If Jim didn’t know any better, he would call the noise that Spock emits at that a purr.

Still knitting, Spock says, “Yes, Jim?” His fingers fly and the skein of yarn rolls every few stitches. Jim picks it up and takes to rolling it for Spock. It probably messes him up, but Jim doesn’t think Spock’ll ask him to set it back down.

“You know, if you pull the end that comes from the middle, then you don’t have to deal with of the rolling around business.” He looks up at Spock, smile on his mouth and in his eyes as he tosses the skein of yarn onto the floor. 

Spock continues knitting. “I will keep that in mind for the next color I choose to use.” He finishes a row, sparing a moment to slide two of his fingers down the bridge of Jim’s nose before he switches needles. His hands fly once more. “I find that this is indeed a very relaxing task. It is similar to the relaxation I feel when we engage in chess. Both are mentally stimulating, although knitting is slightly physically stimulating as well. I can see why you have chosen this activity as opposed to chess in the past few months.”

“Whoa, hold up a sec,” Jim says, “Physically stimulating?”

“Not in the manner, I presume, that you are currently imagining.”

“So, what, you don’t find the sight of my hands physically arousing?”

Spock shifts very slightly, but with his head pillowed on Spock’s lap, Jim doubtlessly feels it. “I did not say that,” Spock returns. “I simply meant that the task itself requires more --”

Jim hums and Spock cuts himself off, once again pausing in his actions. He copies Jim by shoving the stitches down the needle but instead tosses it down onto the floor with the remainder of his yarn. Jim takes the opportunity to lift a hand up and grasp Spock’s wrist tug it down until he’s lying on his side. The position itself -- faces nearly lined with the other’s junk -- gives Jim a bit of a Pavlovian response and when Jim slides his hand up Spock’s wrist to very slowly twine their fingers together, he hopes that Spock can sense it.

“Are you sure about that?” he asks.

If Jim were right side up, or if Spock were wrong side down, maybe the slightly furrowed brow wouldn’t look so amusing. He’s sure that that’s trailing up behind the arousal, followed by a significant dose of fondness. 

Spock double-blinks like the onslaught of Jim’s emotions is more than he can bear. “I do find your hands...physically stimulating.” Maybe it is. Jim lets go.

As agilely as possible, given the limited surface area, Jim shuffles around until he’s face-to-face with Spock. “Good,” Jim says, “because I’ve gotta say. You took to that like a duck to water and now I kind of wanna see what else these hands can do.”

Spock double-blinks again. “Are you employing sexual innuendo?”

Snorting, Jim verifies with a nod and a shrug. “I was trying to. But if you want clear-cut, I can do that too.” He scoots closer, nose nearly touching Spock’s. Spock could probably give a distance to the fiftieth decimal, but Jim is content with the simplicity of sharing a breath every so often. He closes the distance and kisses Spock, a quick series of chaste, playful kisses. Every time he pulls back, Spock presses slightly closer. Jim smiles.

The next kiss is a little deeper and Jim feels Spock’s hand cradle the back of his head, so he hums into it, lightly taking Spock’s lower lip between his teeth. Deeper still, licking into Spock’s mouth, Jim tries shoving at Spock’s shoulder to get him to lie back -- to no avail, of course, because the guy is at least three times stronger than him -- and then pulls back enough to mumble, “On your back.” Spock drags him down on top of him.

Their hips are aligned and Jim is already half-hard, hopeful and obsessed with the way Spock’s body is so solid beneath him. Very subtly, one of Spock’s hands settles on Jim’s hip while the other trails up across his shoulder. When it slides down his arm, pausing briefly to knead at his bicep, Jim isn’t at all surprised when the last step is to press their first two fingers together. Spock gasps into Jim’s mouth and tightens the grip on his hip.

“You are aroused,” Spock says, eyes minutely widening.

“Uh, yeah,” Jim says, grinding down against Spock’s lap, “I’d say so. Hey -- how about you show me what you --” Jim’s breathless, distracted by the heat in Spock’s eyes as he watches his mouth move, struggling to gather his thoughts into something resembling coherence. “Remember when I asked you how -- we should --” Jim swears he used to be a hell of a lot smoother than this, but well. This is _Spock_.

Spock takes Jim’s hand, manipulates his fingers into the _ta’al_ and then starts rubbing down the back of it, his fingertips delicate against the thin skin, raised veins, strong bones. He gasps. Jim feels a flood of heat well up in his gut at the sound.

“ _Oh_ ,” Jim breathes, shifting atop Spock’s hips. He sits up, straddling him.

Jim grinds down again and, while Spock is distracted by that, he twists his own hand around and twines their fingers once more, gripping hard enough to coax a gasp from Spock. He rubs down over the knobs of Spock’s knuckles, strokes down over the delicate bones and thin, sensitive skin. Hips hitching, Jim watches Spock’s face as he moves his own hand back into the _ta’al_ , caresses down and across the soft skin with the pads of his fingertips and then the whole of his fingers until Spock’s lips are parted open.

“Tell me,” Jim urges, “You gotta tell me what feels good.” Then he thinks back, remembers a cold cave and the feeling of his whole world being ripped away, wonders if he’d be able to feel its opposite. He decides to take a chance. “Or, better yet,” he says, grasping Spock’s hand from his hip and holding it up toward his face, “Why don’t you show me?”

Within the span of a blink, Jim is on his back and staring up at Spock who looms with a near predatory expression. “ _Jim_ ,” he grits out, “You do not know what you ask.”

With a wicked grin, Jim says, “Maybe I do,” as he strokes over Spock’s hand again.

Spock shudders. His expression goes soft and then he bends to take Jim’s mouth. They kiss again for a while, slow to fast, soft to almost harsh, until Jim realizes that Spock is _distracting him_. 

“ _Spock_ ,” Jim whines. He grips Spock’s wrist and drags his hand back to his face. “Please?”

“You have done this before,” Spock says more than asks, eyes hard once more, “With whom?”

Jim hitches his legs around Spock’s hips. “You wouldn’t know him,” he replies, remembering the deeply lined cheeks and the smiling eyes, “Or at least I hope you don’t. Besides, it doesn’t matter.” He twines his fingers back through Spock’s so that he can rub more comfortably at his knuckles. Two can play the distraction game. Spock shudders again and drops more of his weight on Jim. Jim groans. 

The length of Spock’s dick is hot and hard against his own and Jim wishes more than anything that they’d had the foresight to remove their clothing. He wants to actually _feel_ Spock, not just have the illusion.

He brings Spock’s head down, skimming his lips across the tips of his ears down to the lobe. Quietly, Jim whispers, “I want you inside my mind,” as he squeezes at Spock’s hand.

Spock bites down a noise, buries his face in the crook of Jim’s neck, and shakes.

Jim wonders, as he slowly rubs his cheek against Spock’s, stubble catching, if he caught whispers of thoughts from their touching skin, or if he only allowed himself the steady, staggering current of just how fucking turned on Jim felt -- and _still_ feels. He wonders what it’d feel like if their minds were to brush, what it would be like to feel all of that for himself, just how well how he’d hold up against that barrage of –

A light pressure settles on Jim’s face in three distinct spots, and then it moves _through_ him, seeping in like a long, slow burn similar to sitting out in the sun for too long on a hot summer day. It suffuses his skin, coaxing a blush to the surface, making him whine and shift beneath Spock, and then suddenly he _feels_ it -- the push of Spock’s mind. It’s concentrated, simple in the way it burns right through to Jim’s core in a torrent of want and satisfaction and longing for more. Jim whines, gasping and shaking and trying to breathe through it, and then the pressure is gone.

When his vision swims back into focus, Spock’s face is hovering just over his, eyes full of heat and a damn near smug satisfaction. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” Jim pants, laughing in disbelief. “You’ve been holding out on me. Why didn’t you tell me it’d be that intense?”

Spock swoops in for a brief series of chaste kisses -- because it can never just be one with them -- and then settles to Jim’s side, grimacing very briefly in obvious discomfort as he plucks at the front of his pants. (Jim’s in the same boat, so he won’t rib Spock about the facial expression.) “I gather you found that experience to be satisfactory?” he asks.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Jim says. His hair is sweaty and messy across his forehead and just as he thinks about swiping it back, Spock’s hand is there, beating him to it. Spock’s fingers are delicate, skimming his skin and then shaking like he just caught that last bit of Jim’s little zings of aftershock.

Though he doesn’t say it explicitly, Spock seems to relax a little bit more against Jim’s side as though Jim’s enjoyment is more potent and more important than his own. Jim turns onto his side, stroking a hand up beneath Spock’s shirts to rest over his heart beating away beneath his ribs. His thumb strokes over the soft skin, the hidden strength.

Jim is already half-dozing when he hears Spock point out, “You are content.” 

He’s snuggling Spock. Despite the discomfort in his trousers, Jim is pretty sure that he’s never felt such a bone-deep complacency. “Yeah, I’d say so,” he slurs, blinking drowsily at Spock, “but next time, let’s lose the pants first.”

“Yes, Jim.”


End file.
